Author Topic: General forum game discussion  (Read 63821 times)

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Offline Lorric

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Re: General forum game discussion
I am aware of the issues with the quarterback problem, but then the quarterback has to let themselves be dragged down with everyone else rather than raise everyone else up. It isn't so much of an issue for the quarterback if his intervention is unnecessary to still ultimately prevail. Also other players could learn from the quarterback's interventions and the quarterback ultimately becomes less and less influential.

 

Offline Enioch

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Re: General forum game discussion
[...] but then the quarterback has to let themselves be dragged down with everyone else rather than raise everyone else up. It isn't so much of an issue for the quarterback if his intervention is unnecessary to still ultimately prevail.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

Also other players could learn from the quarterback's interventions and the quarterback ultimately becomes less and less influential.

No, they don't. Whether by 'teaching' other players or by constantly pointing out the best way to proceed, they get the playerbase to follow their (admittedly possibly optimal) path. Which exists in a way that makes the game boring. If there is a 'best way' to do things, then a computer can play the game as well as we can and I find no particular pleasure in playing such a game.

The only two ways you can effectively eliminate the quarterback problem in a game (i.e. make it objectively moot for a player to suggest optimal strategies) without PvP is

  • to not give the player the option for an 'optimal' path, usually through imperfect information (e.g. give them a list of options without telling them what the result of each will be beforehand).
  • to reward the players for taking imperfect 'group' actions in favour of 'playing their character' (e.g. give a player the option to delay the joint offensive against the Hegemony in exchange for some unspecified bonus to their faction)

In both above cases, there's no point in having a quarterback, no matter the purity of their motives, because they don't have all the information and any suggestion they make can be countered with ''yeah, that's your opinion, I prefer to do X and your suggestion is not objectively better than my choice".

TL;DR: I don't mind players telling me what to do. I mind them being objectively right. I do not want to play a game in which a specific move can be shown to be objectively 'the best' each and every turn.

Which is why I enjoyed the PvP: it's hard to predict the moves of another player and, in many cases, it serves you better to bluff or anticipate a gambit than to play 'safe'.
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Offline Droid803

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Re: General forum game discussion
Aren't both those points achieved in the current (proposed) system anyway?
- Enemy orders in tactical combat are unknown, it is impossible to derive optimal battle orders without knowing this.
- Faction leaders will reward imperfect group actions for "playing in character"

Thus this shouldn't be a problem for a PvP or PvE scenario?
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Offline Lorric

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Re: General forum game discussion
Well the first part I was basically saying if the quarterback has a choice between going into action and winning or not doing and losing how could he do nothing and thus end up being a loser? And that that is much less of an issue if the quarterback can still win without going into action.

As for the rest of your post, well that's quite interesting. So am I right then that your issue isn't with the quarterback at all but the fact the game allows the quarterback to exist? That would explain your puzzlement with that paragraph I guess.

 

Offline Enioch

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Re: General forum game discussion
Yes, they are. Which is why I said I liked the current system.

It has its problems, of course, of which the most notable is a tendency to snowball. Once the CRF started losing, it became really hard to stop losing.

Of course, the current system also involves PvP, which makes it a non-pure-coop game.

EDIT: Yes, that is exactly my point.

A game can have many people involved, but it might only have a single player. A pure co-op game, with no hidden information is, by definition a single-player game. It's just that this single player happens to have a lot of brains and separate physical bodies. It only takes one of those brains being skilled enough to handle the game mechanics for it to take over and be an effective quarterback.

The game system should not give the possibility for a quarterback to exist. They should be unaware of something: either the other players' goals, or the exact results of their actions, or the upcoming developments, or the other players' capabilities. Something.

You have to involve a lot of players, not brains behind a single player.
« Last Edit: January 24, 2016, 06:02:28 pm by Enioch »
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Offline Lorric

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Re: General forum game discussion
Food for thought if we go back to PvE. But even if we don't, the main game will ultimately become PvE when the Hierarchy rolls into town...

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: General forum game discussion
A game can have many people involved, but it might only have a single player. A pure co-op game, with no hidden information is, by definition a single-player game.

This statement fails to acknowledge that cooperation between humans is unlikely to be perfect, assured, or even necessarily seen as a desirable outcome, as any idiot who's ever done a raid in Warcraft can tell you.

The existence of a co-op game in no way removes the multiple human friction factors that may result in there being multiple people playing the game. Indeed, it can be designed so there are ultimately multiple players regardless, as the players may be physically unable to coordinate their actions in a meaningful way.
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Offline Enioch

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Re: General forum game discussion
If cooperation is imperfect, this means that a) information is not shared equally b) complete information is unavailable or c) the goals of the participants are not the same.

In any case of imperfect cooperation, you can attribute failure to one or more of the above factors. In your WoW example, a failed raid might be due to e.g. specific key players choosing to prioritise their characters' survival over the success of the raid (not the same goals) or the leader not communicating the changing battlefield information properly (information problems) or the players not knowing what defenses are in place (incomplete information)

Now, as you said, human friction factors can cause the above situations. But a game cannot depend on its players to cause the necessary problems that will impede proper cooperation and make things interesting, especially if it is in their stated best interest to attempt to coordinate perfectly. If the goal of the game is to cooperate to win, then the players are expected to try to cooperate and any game that says 'yeah, playing will be interesting because chances are high that my players will fail to coordinate perfectly' has fundamental design problems and is self-contradictive. The game design needs to actively encourage the players to cooperate - but somehow prevent them from reaching total cooperation, by incorporating one of the above three points (a, b or c) in the game rules.

In your final example, of the players being 'physically unable to coordinate', information is not shared equally (case a). This is an acceptable cooperative game by my standards.
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Offline Lepanto

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Re: General forum game discussion
I like the idea of going back to PvE, but with imperfect information and side goals that reward selfishness. That way, we avoid this game's problems with ministers and defeated faction players losing interest. And we still mostly avoid the problems with quarterbacking from the first game.

Spoon, if we switched back to PvE, do you think you might retain the minister positions, or would we be going all Admirals again? I think the minister position was cool in theory, and cool in practice so long as Ministers had a relevant job to do. Even if all the Ministers were theoretically allied, they could allocate resources to the war effort, research tech, and conduct diplomacy with each other and any races willing to talk. During WWII, the Allies had a hard time agreeing on anything, and Eisenhower had to spend a lot of time and effort just keeping the U.S. and Britain operating together on the Western Front. Ergo, shifting back to PvE wouldn't obviate the minister position.
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Re: General forum game discussion
I would be a bit sad if the pvp component gets completely removed. Thats not because we are "winning" against the CRF but cause I liked the fact that there are players behind the fleets on the other side who may or may not share the same oponion. That said I don't think commanding up to three fleets by myself was absolutely fair...

I like the idea of going back to PvE, but with imperfect information and side goals that reward selfishness. That way, we avoid this game's problems with ministers and defeated faction players losing interest. And we still mostly avoid the problems with quarterbacking from the first game.

Spoon, if we switched back to PvE, do you think you might retain the minister positions, or would we be going all Admirals again? I think the minister position was cool in theory, and cool in practice so long as Ministers had a relevant job to do. Even if all the Ministers were theoretically allied, they could allocate resources to the war effort, research tech, and conduct diplomacy with each other and any races willing to talk. During WWII, the Allies had a hard time agreeing on anything, and Eisenhower had to spend a lot of time and effort just keeping the U.S. and Britain operating together on the Western Front. Ergo, shifting back to PvE wouldn't obviate the minister position.

If we really ditch the pvp part I hope we can keep something like what Lepanto wrote. Each nation should have their on goals provided by the dungeon master (Spoon), their own territory and potentially have to trade and cooperate to get certain ressources, technology or build ships. Might think and write about some detailed stuff later if I'm motivated ;)
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Offline Spoon

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Re: General forum game discussion
Last turn result delayed because I intend to record a short video for it, but Lv90 wizard Swifty is working on making the shields look a lot better, so I'm patiently going to wait for him to work his magic before I do the recording!

Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline Enioch

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Re: General forum game discussion
Fair enough. Any idea when to expect it?
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline Spoon

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Re: General forum game discussion
Probably (hopefully) no later than tomorrow.

At the very end, I realize. Uuni II has a nebula background on the strategic map that I never put on the tactical map.
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline Veers

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Re: General forum game discussion
magic


At the very end, I realize. Uuni II has a nebula background on the strategic map that I never put on the tactical map.

Well, at least someone noticed. I don't think any of us did. :)
« Last Edit: January 31, 2016, 08:02:45 pm by Spoon »
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Offline Spoon

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Re: General forum game discussion
Fixed that youtube for you (just insert the last set numbers of the url, not the whole url)
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline Veers

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Re: General forum game discussion
Ahh, cheers. :) Weak humour anyway. :D
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Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: General forum game discussion
Lv90 wizard Swifty is working on making the shields look a lot better
wait what
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Offline Spoon

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Re: General forum game discussion
Well it's clear the 128x128 shieldani's from the mediavp's don't look so good when used on large ships. Guess I'll have to go make new ones!
Photobucket is unforunately being a **** right now, I hope imagebin works for everyone.

And that's the end of this forum test game. Thanks for playing.
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline niffiwan

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Re: General forum game discussion
Well frak me, I'll have to hand in my UGCR commerce badge after letting us come dead last in economics/resources  :lol:
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Offline headdie

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Re: General forum game discussion
Good Game guys
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